THIS is how freedom of speech should be used, period.
... nice one, Ms Bündchen, you just made my day.
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Gisele Bündchen calls for breastfeeding law, compulsory for six months worldwide
SUPERMODEL Gisele Bündchen has called for breastfeeding to be made mandatory by law for at least six months.
"I think breastfeeding really helped me keep my figure," Bündchen told Harper's Bazaar.
In a new article she said she believes breastfeeding should be a law.
"I think there should be a worldwide law, in my opinion, that mothers should breastfeed their babies for six months."
Bündchen believes breastfeeding is the only way to get your baby the nutrients it needs. "Some people here (in the US) think they don't have to breastfeed, and I think 'Are you going to give chemical food to your child when they are so little?'
As for her personal experience with labor, Gisele says meditation helped her through it. "It prepared me mentally and physically. It's called 'labor' not 'holiday' for a reason, and I knew that.
"You want to go into the most intense physical experience of your life unprepared? That doesn't make any sense to me," she quips. "Then I was ready and I thought OK, let's get to work'. I wasn't expecting someone else to get the baby out of me."
========================================
One line for you, Ms Bündchen: please moderate your opinions. Granted, you have the freedom to speak your mind, but once you cross the line and impose your views on others, that, my dear, is tantamount to depriving others of their freedom.
Your opinion cannot stand as international law because not all women are in the same position as you. Feminism has given women freedom, allowed them to work and hence liberated them from the household, if they should care to not let it define them. In general, their social lives and careers are now richer for it than in pre- and proto-feminist times, when they were slaves and mere commodities; they can now be - and are, to a larger degree than before - financially independent of their partners. In your case, your job requires your looks, so you would be in no danger even if you chose to breastfeed all your children for a year; demand for your looks would still be there. Your looks are the reason why you can have the 'best of both worlds'. But not so the majority of the working women out there whose jobs depend on their skills; half a year of breastfeeding is a dangerous duration because of the deskilling that can occur in that amount of time, for women snatched from their careers would thus have a hard time trying to get back into the workforce after that. And in most of their cases, they choose to go to work. Impose a law that could lead to deskilling and you return womankind to the home and to menial housework; no thanks. Given that kind of choice, those who really want to work would either stay single or use contraceptives, which would lower the global fertility rate, mostly on the side of the developed countries. And it is in the developed countries that skill levels are highest. So are you sure you want to see the skill level of the world drop? I highly doubt so. Hence, real solutions that help women balance work and family - NOT a proliferation of part-time jobs, might I stress, for that constitutes underemployment in the case of many a female citizen of a developed country - would be the best solution here. Women have tasted freedom; there is no way back.
Also, may I remark that your physical assets are among the best worldwide - hence your being hired for your particular job, and your being able to breastfeed your child. Have you spared a thought for those who, for some reason or another, cannot? Perhaps the mother is facing some problems - be they psychosomatic or physical or psychological - and that is blocking her milk ducts? Perhaps the child is having difficulty latching on for some reason or another? What would you do in such cases? Deprive the child of nutrients until the mother lactates? Subject the mother to hormone treatments until she lactates? Won't that be worse for the child?
In addition, has it occurred to you that your law might be a source of stress that can block the milk flow, just as couples pressured into having children (that happens) find it difficult to do so? What then? Punish the errant mothers for something they cannot control? What a mockery of justice that would be!
I am not unconvinced of the benefits of breastfeeding one's child. They come, however, at the expense of the mother's liberty. And I personally am unconvinced of any suggestion that the mothers of today's consumerist culture might be willing to let go of the 'me first' mindset that the consumerist culture breeds in favour of 'the kid goes first'. Men, of course, will still be entitled to the 'me first' mindset. Do we not see something here? Men can go 'me first', women can't. What double standards. All hail the rebirth of inequality!
Before you mistake me for some militant feminist who seeks to impose her own views, let me tell you that I am feminist. That means that I respect every woman's choice, yours included. Some have called your choice to support breastfeeding noble; so do I, because it is, in its own right. But I respect the choice of the working woman too, which in itself has the nobility of fire-refined gold. Feminism, after all, gave women greater liberty in how they define themselves and their roles. (Sadly, it is now too fragmented a movement to be of any more use.) And what I disapprove of is anyone's efforts to take it away, or to influence anyone else's choice. What one chooses to do should be based on his or her own careful analysis of the situation around us, not based on any indoctrination that he or she might have received. Naturally, it means a lot of people are going to have to watch their mouths - which is better, really, because it means a lot more people are going to be thinking before they speak. It is in this context, therefore, that free speech works at its best: layers of intelligent, constructive criticism delivered in the spirit of love build upon each other and really contribute to the development of humankind, not a hotchpotch of unthought-out ideas and the maternal kindness of human milk. Nature plays its part, yes, but so does nurture - equally, if not more, importantly so. Hence moving to closet women at home for six months to breastfeed their children is not viable.
In short, Ms Bündchen, the same old story: please moderate your opinion, period; otherwise anyone silly enough (and that's putting it lightly) to take up your suggestion - one that is very much divorced from reality, might I add - is going to restrict the freedom of womankind. And that includes yours, despite your special concessions.
P.S. If milk formula is really that harmful, then why am I the one - between you and me - who is reasoning this out?
Quod erat demonstrandum.
========================================
Gisele Bündchen calls for breastfeeding law, compulsory for six months worldwide
SUPERMODEL Gisele Bündchen has called for breastfeeding to be made mandatory by law for at least six months.
"I think breastfeeding really helped me keep my figure," Bündchen told Harper's Bazaar.
In a new article she said she believes breastfeeding should be a law.
"I think there should be a worldwide law, in my opinion, that mothers should breastfeed their babies for six months."
Bündchen believes breastfeeding is the only way to get your baby the nutrients it needs. "Some people here (in the US) think they don't have to breastfeed, and I think 'Are you going to give chemical food to your child when they are so little?'
As for her personal experience with labor, Gisele says meditation helped her through it. "It prepared me mentally and physically. It's called 'labor' not 'holiday' for a reason, and I knew that.
"You want to go into the most intense physical experience of your life unprepared? That doesn't make any sense to me," she quips. "Then I was ready and I thought OK, let's get to work'. I wasn't expecting someone else to get the baby out of me."
========================================
One line for you, Ms Bündchen: please moderate your opinions. Granted, you have the freedom to speak your mind, but once you cross the line and impose your views on others, that, my dear, is tantamount to depriving others of their freedom.
Your opinion cannot stand as international law because not all women are in the same position as you. Feminism has given women freedom, allowed them to work and hence liberated them from the household, if they should care to not let it define them. In general, their social lives and careers are now richer for it than in pre- and proto-feminist times, when they were slaves and mere commodities; they can now be - and are, to a larger degree than before - financially independent of their partners. In your case, your job requires your looks, so you would be in no danger even if you chose to breastfeed all your children for a year; demand for your looks would still be there. Your looks are the reason why you can have the 'best of both worlds'. But not so the majority of the working women out there whose jobs depend on their skills; half a year of breastfeeding is a dangerous duration because of the deskilling that can occur in that amount of time, for women snatched from their careers would thus have a hard time trying to get back into the workforce after that. And in most of their cases, they choose to go to work. Impose a law that could lead to deskilling and you return womankind to the home and to menial housework; no thanks. Given that kind of choice, those who really want to work would either stay single or use contraceptives, which would lower the global fertility rate, mostly on the side of the developed countries. And it is in the developed countries that skill levels are highest. So are you sure you want to see the skill level of the world drop? I highly doubt so. Hence, real solutions that help women balance work and family - NOT a proliferation of part-time jobs, might I stress, for that constitutes underemployment in the case of many a female citizen of a developed country - would be the best solution here. Women have tasted freedom; there is no way back.
Also, may I remark that your physical assets are among the best worldwide - hence your being hired for your particular job, and your being able to breastfeed your child. Have you spared a thought for those who, for some reason or another, cannot? Perhaps the mother is facing some problems - be they psychosomatic or physical or psychological - and that is blocking her milk ducts? Perhaps the child is having difficulty latching on for some reason or another? What would you do in such cases? Deprive the child of nutrients until the mother lactates? Subject the mother to hormone treatments until she lactates? Won't that be worse for the child?
In addition, has it occurred to you that your law might be a source of stress that can block the milk flow, just as couples pressured into having children (that happens) find it difficult to do so? What then? Punish the errant mothers for something they cannot control? What a mockery of justice that would be!
I am not unconvinced of the benefits of breastfeeding one's child. They come, however, at the expense of the mother's liberty. And I personally am unconvinced of any suggestion that the mothers of today's consumerist culture might be willing to let go of the 'me first' mindset that the consumerist culture breeds in favour of 'the kid goes first'. Men, of course, will still be entitled to the 'me first' mindset. Do we not see something here? Men can go 'me first', women can't. What double standards. All hail the rebirth of inequality!
Before you mistake me for some militant feminist who seeks to impose her own views, let me tell you that I am feminist. That means that I respect every woman's choice, yours included. Some have called your choice to support breastfeeding noble; so do I, because it is, in its own right. But I respect the choice of the working woman too, which in itself has the nobility of fire-refined gold. Feminism, after all, gave women greater liberty in how they define themselves and their roles. (Sadly, it is now too fragmented a movement to be of any more use.) And what I disapprove of is anyone's efforts to take it away, or to influence anyone else's choice. What one chooses to do should be based on his or her own careful analysis of the situation around us, not based on any indoctrination that he or she might have received. Naturally, it means a lot of people are going to have to watch their mouths - which is better, really, because it means a lot more people are going to be thinking before they speak. It is in this context, therefore, that free speech works at its best: layers of intelligent, constructive criticism delivered in the spirit of love build upon each other and really contribute to the development of humankind, not a hotchpotch of unthought-out ideas and the maternal kindness of human milk. Nature plays its part, yes, but so does nurture - equally, if not more, importantly so. Hence moving to closet women at home for six months to breastfeed their children is not viable.
In short, Ms Bündchen, the same old story: please moderate your opinion, period; otherwise anyone silly enough (and that's putting it lightly) to take up your suggestion - one that is very much divorced from reality, might I add - is going to restrict the freedom of womankind. And that includes yours, despite your special concessions.
P.S. If milk formula is really that harmful, then why am I the one - between you and me - who is reasoning this out?
Quod erat demonstrandum.